“This will work,” she murmured, tightening her grip on the pike. “Please, let this work.”
She raised the pike overhead, braced herself, and slammed the point into the center of the box.
The contact reverberated through the metal and into her arms, clattering down to her bones. Nova stumbled back.
The chromium box had skidded a few feet away but was otherwise unharmed.
Not even a dent.
Snarling, Nova tried again, harder this time. The metals pinged loudly and again her arms shook from the impact. The box crashed into the nearest shelf, making the whole unit tremble from the blow.
Still, no sign that it was weakened.
Desperation welled inside of her. No, no, no. It could not all be for nothing.
This had to work.
She turned the pike over and tried again, this time swinging it like a battle ax. It thudded hard against the box. Her body jolted from the impact. She swung it again. Again. Again.
Reeling back, Nova stared at the pike in disgust. She was panting, though as much from outrage as exertion. This had to work. She needed that helmet and she didn’t have any other options.
She couldn’t fail. Not now.
She hefted the pike over her shoulder and screamed. The star at her wrist flashed, blindingly bright. An electric current shot through her arms and into her fingers as she threw the spear as hard as she could.
As it soared down the aisle, it glowed.
Not silver, but coppery gold.
It struck the box squarely in the side.
The cube shattered.
It might as well have been made of glass.
Nova jumped back as bits of broken chromium were flung at her ankles. The pike clattered to the floor and rolled a few feet away, grayish silver once again.
Her arms tingled from the jolt of energy that had passed through them. Her chest heaved. The wound in her leg was throbbing worse than before.
But all of that was soon forgotten.
A cry of disbelief tumbled from Nova’s lips.
The helmet was there, lying on its side amid the splintered box, exactly as she remembered it. The bronze-tinged material still gleamed faintly, reminding Nova of her father, and how the threads of energy would glow like tiny strips of sunlight as he worked. There was a raised band along the center of the skull, ending in a sharp point on the brow, and the opening in the front where Ace’s eyes had once peered.
The bits of chromium crunched beneath her boots as Nova stepped closer. She knelt and picked it up, cradling the helmet in both hands.
It did not look dangerous. It did not even look foreboding.
It looked merely as though it had been waiting for her.
CHAPTER FORTY
RUBY AND OSCAR were dancing again when Adrian left the gala. Nova had been gone for more than an hour, and he’d spent some time chatting with Kasumi and her husband and mingling with a few of the patrols he’d trained with years ago but rarely saw anymore, except in passing. He’d eaten his dessert—a sweet and creamy lemon custard—and had given Nova’s to Ruby’s brothers to share. He’d danced once with Ruby and once with Oscar’s mom.
But he’d been counting the minutes since Nova had left, biding his time before he could leave without the truth being completely obvious.
Without her there, he just wasn’t interested in dancing and small talk. All he wanted was to go home, lie down in the jungle he had made, and think of the next time he would see her.
The next time he would kiss her.
He couldn’t stop grinning as he left the gala and tucked his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo pants. His marker was there and he pulled it out and rolled it between his palms.
He should draw something for Nova, to give to her when they saw each other in the morning. Just a little something to remind her of the past couple of nights. The past couple of amazing nights. Something to let her know he was thinking about her. That he was serious about her.
He knew Nova was slow to trust. Slow to let go of her uncertainties. Slow to risk getting hurt. He thought he understood her better now that she’d told him the truth of her parents, and her sister. Great skies, her baby sister. Evie.
His smile faded thinking about it. His heart twisted to imagine Nova, small and frightened Nova, having to endure something so horrific …
And though he knew, logically, that there wasn’t a person on this planet who needed his protection less than Nova McLain did, he couldn’t help the overwhelming desire to protect her anyway. To keep her from ever having to suffer like that again.
He twirled the marker, contemplating what gift he could draw that would encompass all that. His dress shoes were clacking noisily on the pavement, a steady cadence that followed him down the familiar, dark streets toward home.
He had just discarded the most obvious, trivial ideas—jewelry, flowers, a new weaponry belt—when a small movement darted past his vision, nearly smacking into his glasses.
Adrian reeled back. At first he thought it was a bird, or one of those creepy giant moths that sometimes appeared out of nowhere in his basement.
But then he saw it. A black and gold butterfly, dancing around a lamppost a few feet away from him.
“Danna?” said Adrian, scanning the street for more stray insects. The butterfly seemed to be alone, and it crossed his mind that there was a chance it was nothing more than a common monarch butterfly.
One that just happened to be flittering about in the middle of the night.
Scratching his cheek with the capped marker, Adrian sauntered slowly past the lamppost.
The butterfly darted after him. It twirled once around his head, then alighted on top of a fire hydrant.
“Danna,” he said again, with more certainty this time.
The butterfly opened and closed its wings as if in response, though Danna had once told him that she couldn’t hear while in swarm mode—only see, and … sense things. It was hard to explain, she said.
Adrian peered around again, but the street was deserted. Parked cars and dark shop windows. There were mosquitoes and crane flies clicking against a neon sign, but no butterflies.
Where was the rest of her swarm?
Where had she been all night?
The butterfly fluttered toward Adrian. He held out his hand and it perched on his knuckle. Its antenna twitched and it seemed to be studying him, waiting.
“Okay,” he said, pocketing his marker. “You lead the way.”
Whether or not it could hear him, the butterfly left his hand, circled his body one more time, and took off.
Adrian followed.
Two miles later, he wished he had stopped by the house to put on different shoes.
The buildings changed from glass-and-steel office buildings to strip malls and warehouses to crammed-together apartments. Most of the trek was uphill and as the elevation rose, so too did the affluence of the neighborhood. It wasn’t quite the row of mansions that he lived on, but the streets held the memory of quiet suburbia. He could tell people still lived in some of the homes—some even had recently mowed lawns—though like most neighborhoods in the city, it showed signs of abandonment and neglect. Fences needing a fresh coat of paint. Broken windows hastily boarded up. Roofs covered in moss and pine needles from unkempt trees.
The butterfly never flew ahead so far that he couldn’t keep up, and it frequently had to pause and wait for him. He racked his brain to think of a reason why Danna wouldn’t transform back into her human form, and where the rest of her swarm could be. The only explanation was that the rest of her butterflies were trapped somewhere, preventing her from reforming. Maybe that’s what this was about. Was she leading him to her location so he could set her free? If so, maybe this wasn’t as ominous as he’d initially thought. Maybe one of her butterflies had gotten sucked into a vacuum bag, or had been captured by a kid and stuck in an empty juice carton for a well-intentioned science project.
But then the hill became steeper, and
the neighborhood turned desolate, and he realized where she was taking him.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
He started to notice signs of a long-ago battle and the destruction it had wrought. Scorch marks on the pavement. Holes smashed through brick walls. An entire building with the windows blown out.
And then there were no buildings at all.
Adrian left the crumbling homes and apartments behind and stood at the edge of the wasteland. The Battle for Gatlon had leveled almost an entire square mile of civilization, and the debris had never been cleaned up. A chain-link fence had been erected around the perimeter, warning of possible radiation poisoning, which was enough to keep most tourists away.
In the center of the wasteland stood the ruins of the cathedral that Ace Anarchy had claimed as his home—his headquarters, of sorts. The bell tower was mostly standing, along with parts of the cloister and the northern part of the structure. But the rest had been demolished.
Adrian’s fingers twitched, itching to unbutton the top of his dress shirt and open the zipper tattoo that would transform him into the Sentinel.
But even now, he didn’t want to risk Danna finding out his secret.
The butterfly flew over the fence, and Adrian saw a place where someone had taken wire clippers to the metal links and pulled it back, just wide enough to slip through.
Curious tourists, he thought. Or some kids acting on a dare.
But he couldn’t be sure of that. He had no idea who would come here. This place had been left abandoned since the defeat of Ace Anarchy.
Why had Danna brought him here?
Gripping his marker, Adrian ducked through the opening. The metal scratched at his jacket and he felt a piece snag on his shoulder, ripping a hole in the seam. As soon as he was on the other side, he wriggled his arms out of the sleeves and left the jacket draped over the fence so it would be easy to find the opening again.
The butterfly headed toward the cathedral, dipping in and out of the ruins. A second fence had fallen into disrepair, and Adrian passed a DANGER: DO NOT ENTER sign. The butterfly alighted briefly on the sign, then took off again.
“Okay, Danna,” Adrian murmured, pausing as he watched the butterfly’s wings swooping around the debris, catching the moonlight. “This would be a good time to indicate whether or not I should call for backup.”
But the butterfly didn’t answer, of course. She couldn’t understand him anyway.
He gnawed on the inside of his cheek. Indecision clawed at him. Should he call for backup? And if so—should he call his team, or his dads?
Or should he transform into the Sentinel and see what he was dealing with first?
The butterfly waited on a fallen pillar, its wings beating impatiently.
Adrian gulped.
If he had been with the others when he’d gone after Hawthorn, then things might have gone much differently.
There is no I in hero.
“Fine,” he muttered, lifting his wrist to his mouth. “Send team communication. Calling for immediate backup at—”
A sudden wind blew around Adrian’s ankles, kicking up a cloud of dust. The butterfly was caught in the draft and sent whirring into the overhang over a collapsed arch.
Adrian’s words dried on his tongue. The dust converged. Darkened. Solidified.
A figure stood in a fluttering black cloak, its hood eclipsing the deep shadows where a face should have been, the hooked blade of a scythe cutting across the sky.
Phobia.
Adrian’s pulse thundered. For a heartbeat that felt like an eternity, he stared into the nothingness inside Phobia’s cloak, dread settling inside his core. Of all the Anarchists, Phobia had long struck him as the most frightening. Not only because his power revolved around the control of a person’s greatest fears, but because so little was known about him. No one knew his weaknesses, if he had any. He had never heard of Phobia being wounded, even during the Battle for Gatlon. He had once seen him struck with a giant shard of ice that would have impaled most humans, but Phobia only disappeared for a while, fading into black smoke. The effect had been temporary.
Still, Adrian held his ground. He struggled to think of his options. What could he draw that would aid in a fight against Phobia?
“I have tasted fear like yours before,” said Phobia, his voice a rasp and a hiss. “The fear of being powerless.”
Adrian tightened his jaw.
Screw it.
He tore open the collar of his shirt, popping a button from the fabric. His fingers pulled the zipper from the ink.
He started to tug it down when he heard someone screaming his name.
He froze.
His entire body caved in on itself. Filling with disbelief. And though he knew deep inside that it was a trick, and it was not to be trusted, there was no possibility of him not looking.
Not hoping, for all his miserable optimism.
He inclined his head and saw her.
The thick ropes of her hair framing frantic eyes. The golden cape whipping in the air behind her. That brave, beautiful face that could morph from stern to loving in the blink of an eye. From disapproval to laughter.
His mom was soaring over the cathedral, like she couldn’t get to him fast enough. All the horrors of the world were mirrored in her face, and she was coming to protect him, her only son, her life and love.
It was like watching a string cut on a puppet.
She was flying.
And then she was falling.
Plummeting toward the wasteland.
Her cries caught in the wind. Her arms flailed, getting twisted in the cape.
Adrian yelled and tried to run toward her, but his feet were cemented to the ground. It was his worst nightmare, all his worst nightmares come to life. His mother falling to her death and he was stuck, unable to do anything. He was losing her all over again, and he was completely, utterly powerless.
A shadow cut through his mother’s body moments before she collided with the earth.
The illusion shattered.
Adrian fell to his knees. Pain spiked through his leg as a piece of sharp stone dug into his shin. He blinked the tears away and watched as the shadow, a blur of movement, pivoted in the air and streaked toward the fence line.
Not a shadow. A swarm. Hundreds of monarch butterflies.
And in the distance, just now shoving their way through the fence, were Ruby and Oscar. Adrian didn’t think they had seen him yet.
Phobia turned toward them. His skeletal fingers curled around the handle of his scythe, then he dissolved into a cloud of black crows. They soared after the butterflies, driving them away.
With an exhausted cry, Adrian ducked and rolled behind the fallen arch. He landed on his shoulder. His eyes were watering. His body still shaking from the vision. It had seemed so real. Her voice. The terrified expression. The way his heart had yearned to get to her, to save her.
He took in a shuddering breath, trying to clear the thoughts from his mind.
It didn’t work. The memory remained, cloying and cruel.
But he reached for the zipper anyway, and let the Sentinel engulf him.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ADRIAN FORCED HIMSELF up from the rubble. His legs were still weak, but the suit was supporting him now. The swarm of butterflies was nearly to the fence line and Adrian wondered whether Danna was fleeing for her life or trying to lead Phobia away from her friends. Either way, the flock of crows was gaining on her, their silhouettes almost invisible against the night sky.
Adrian knew the result of that food chain.
The birds passed over Ruby and Oscar. Ruby released a scream of rage and swung her bloodstone at them, knocking two birds from the air. One crashed into the fence, the other crumpled into the ground, one wing twisted at an odd angle.
The others seemed unbothered by their lost companions.
“Danna!” Ruby cried.
Adrian started to run. And then he started to fly, using the tattoos
on the bottoms of his feet to launch himself forward.
Flame crackled around his fist. He could feel its heat through the armor, but it encouraged more than frightened him. The fire grew until it nearly claimed his entire arm. White-hot and churning, the flames licking at the air.
Oscar grabbed Ruby by the back of her uniform and hauled her out of Adrian’s way.
He blew past his friends and took to the air, thrusting his palm forward.
The fire blazed along his limb and shot toward the gathering of crows. It devoured them, swallowing their squawks and cries, igniting their feathers and talons. Extinguishing them.
Adrian landed hard on the ground just inside the chain-link fence. He collapsed to one knee, struggling for breath.
Beyond the wasteland, he saw a smattering of birds who had escaped the fire turn into wisps of black smoke. They faded away while the butterflies dived beneath the remains of a battered taxicab.
A flutter drew Adrian’s attention to the side and he saw one of the crows that had been knocked down by Ruby’s stone. Its wing was crippled, and it was staring at Adrian with one beady black eye, intelligent and calculating.
Adrian shuddered.
The bird dissolved into black ash, scattering to the wind.
He released a long, exhausted groan. He was not naive enough to think that Phobia was dead. But he hoped it was the last he would see of the villain today, at least.
A boot crunched in the dirt.
Adrian squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself, and stood. He turned to face them.
Smokescreen and Red Assassin. His teammates. His friends.
Ruby was gripping her wire in one hand, a ruby dagger in the other. Oscar had a charcoal gray cloud storming around him, obscuring the ground at his feet. They wore matching looks of apprehension.
Adrian could tell they didn’t want to fight him, but he didn’t think it was out of a sense of camaraderie.
No. They were afraid. They didn’t think they could win in a fight against him.
They would be right, he figured, though it was the first time he’d stopped to consider the possibility.
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